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Tourism Whistler launches business plan to tackle challenging tourism environment

Plan focuses on the customers said new president Barrett Fisher Global events have battered Whistler over the past two years, leaving a damaged tourism industry in its wake and a resort worried for its future.

Plan focuses on the customers said new president Barrett Fisher

Global events have battered Whistler over the past two years, leaving a damaged tourism industry in its wake and a resort worried for its future.

Expectant eyes are focused on Tourism Whistler looking for answers to help weather the storm.

Under the guidance on its new president Barrett Fisher, Tourism Whistler has recently launched a strategic business plan to see Whistler through the years ahead.

"It’s a perfect time for me, sitting in this new seat, to look at the world very differently, to look at the organization very differently," said Fisher who took over the presidency of the organization four months ago.

"And if the tourism industry is changing and Whistler is changing, it makes perfect sense that it’s time that Tourism Whistler changes."

The changes documented in the new business plan range from an overhaul of the organizational structure to tightening the focus on key destination markets to maximizing the vast opportunities from the Olympics and the newly renovated Telus Conference Centre at Whistler.

The plan is certainly different from anything Tourism Whistler has launched in the recent past.

"The way we used to do marketing and sales might be different today so we have to adapt to the new ways," Fisher said.

Yet, at its heart lies the core mandate of the organization – that Tourism Whistler is a sales and marketing organization designed to drive room nights to the resort.

This is something Tourism Whistler’s board members do not want Fisher to forget.

"Our members have, to a certain degree, accused Tourism Whistler historically of trying to be all things to all people at all times," said Fisher.

"And what we are trying to do is focus on being a marketing and sales, customer-driven organization."

That powerful focus has manifested itself in many ways throughout the business plan.

One area Fisher believes will drive those room nights up and increase business is by taking a conscious step to develop Tourism Whistler’s customer relationships.

There are databases of information on past visitors sitting at Tourism Whistler’s fingertips. That information can let Tourism Whistler know what kind of a holiday a guest has had here in the past and as such they can customize an attractive package to entice them back.

"We have profiles on all of our customers so it’s ensuring then that we utilize that information and that we communicate with them on an ongoing basis to attract them to come back again," said Fisher.

Tourism Whistler will still do mass advertising to grow awareness she said, but there will be a clear focus among the sales team to develop the repeat visitation.

"There’s more likelihood of a customer who has been and had a good experience to return than necessarily fishing sometimes for customers who maybe aren’t even a future potential," said Fisher.

It’s a tactic that isn’t used actively in the tourism industry she said but companies like Intrawest are very good at utilizing information they already know about customers as a way to bring them back.

As Tourism Whistler tightens the focus on its customers, it’s also narrowing its focus in its destination marketplaces for the next winter season and thereafter.

Rather than have more markets Fisher said they are going to focus on greater depth within existing markets.

For competitive reasons she did not want to specify the five target markets where Tourism Whistler will focus but she did say that there will be staff actually in some of those markets to promote the resort.

On the flip side, Tourism Whistler will be pulling away from some of its support markets.

A review of those markets showed that some just aren’t seeing the return on the investment and others don’t have non-stop direct air access, or their tour operator and distribution channels aren’t as sophisticated as they could be.

"Instead of great breadth, we’re going to have more depth," she said.

This same theory applies not just to the destination markets but to festivals and events within the resort.

Two traditional Tourism Whistler festivals, Oktoberfest and the Jazz and Blues Festival, will be dropped from the roster entirely because even though they have nice content, the festivals themselves are not necessarily driving room nights to the resort.

Weetama, the summer Aboriginal festival, has also been dropped in its original form as a weeklong event.

This festival again does not bring people to the resort but because it has important historical themes tied to Whistler, Fisher said it was important to preserve some of the content.

Now the Weetama celebrations will be incorporated into the summer street performance series.

By dropping those events from the lineup, Tourism Whistler will be able to focus more on signature events, like Cornucopia and the World Ski and Snowboard Festival.

"We believe that having fewer bigger signature events that become indigenous with Whistler, that reflect our brand, drive traffic to the resort and receive media exposure on television in return, will be of greater benefit… than executing a number of smaller events that don’t really hit people’s radar screens," said Fisher.

This summer Tourism Whistler will kick off what they hope will become another big signature event for the summertime, a music and arts in the mountain festival, incorporating things like a concert series, artists on display, art walks, visual and performing arts. This summer the event will be small but they envision great things for future summer business.

To execute this plan Fisher has revamped the organizational structure of Tourism Whistler. She had good grounding for this exercise after sitting on the governance task force for the 2010 Olympics.

While she was Acting President of Tourism Whistler, from June until December last year, she didn’t have the authority to make any changes to the organization. Instead, she spent that time looking at the organization and doing a full review and analysis.

What she realized was there were some fundamental flaws in the organizational structure.

Historically there was one sales position on the marketing team and three in operations.

"And yet we’re a marketing and sales organization. And so that didn’t make sense to me," she said.

Now there are more positions responsible for strategizing and fewer focused on operations.

Another major change in the organization is that there will be two separate sales teams selling business within the resort.

One team will focus solely on the newly renovated conference centre under the guidance of a new general manager. That GM, Lynda Gilroy, will be responsible for the operations of the centre as well as bringing bigger conference business to Whistler.

Now that the conference centre is twice the size there is a clear focus to attract big groups to the resort.

"Now it allows us to go after larger pieces of business that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to go after," said Fisher.

Meanwhile another team in Tourism Whistler will focus on bringing both meetings and leisure business to the hotels with the resort.

Traditionally both resort and conference centre business were under one portfolio and that was considered an inherent conflict of interest because members didn’t know if Tourism Whistler was selling the conference centre or meeting rooms in their hotels.

By splitting the duties, members cannot accuse Tourism Whistler of competing with other resort businesses.

With the organization in place, the time is right to get to work on a long-term tourism strategy for Whistler.

The strategy will look at future geographic markets like China, future demographic markets like the gay market as well as future product markets like using education as a way to attract people here rather than the traditional products like skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking and golfing.

The research for that strategy is already underway but the fallout from the plan may not happen until years down the road.

Whatever the long term tourism strategy may hold, Fisher knows it must have innovative solutions to help sustain the business.

Tourism Whistler has one key advantage to help it compete with other resorts. The Olympics are coming to town in 2010.

"Despite the fact that we actually have had these challenging two years, we also have this incredibly positive news looking forward as to how we can build our business," she said.

The Olympics allow Whistler to build upon its partnerships with companies like Visa International, which is set to make a multi-million dollar marketing investment in the Whistler profile.

"It’s those kinds of partnerships that we’re able to continue to grow and leverage the brand of Whistler, the awareness of Whistler and ultimately future sales," she said.

"We’re been pretty successful in doing that to date but I think as we move forward with the affiliation with the Olympics that it just gives us (and our partners) that much more leverage."